


TRAPPED!

by TrulyIntroverted



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Attempt at Humor, But we still love him, Crack, Fluff, Gen, Han Jisung | Han is a Mess, Heart-to-Heart, Muteness, Panic Attacks, Trapped, Why Did I Write This?, and a poet, but they're mostly clowning each other, in a storage unit, jeongin is emo, so watch out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-17 19:16:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29597499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrulyIntroverted/pseuds/TrulyIntroverted
Summary: Nothing says "survival skills" like spending 12 hours locked in a storage unit.
Relationships: Stray Kids Ensemble/Everyone
Comments: 1
Kudos: 20





	1. start ; 6:00 PM

"And you're sure you got it?"

"Don't worry, Mrs. Ahn," Changbin insisted, shifting the box of graduated cylinders in his arms. "It'll only take a minute anyway." The science teacher smiled gratefully as she locked the classroom door.

"Thank you, Changbin," she said, setting the keys back in her purse as she turned to face her top student. "You're always such a big help."

"It's really not a problem," Changbin said, shaking his head. "Have a good night, Mrs. Ahn. Enjoy the new Code episode!"

"Thank you, Changbin," she laughed. "Get home safely." And with that, they parted ways, Mrs. Ahn heading towards the front of the school while Changbin made his way towards the back.

The school was practically dead at that point, his footsteps the only sound in the hallways as he made his way past the locked classrooms to the storage unit at the very back of the school property. Night was fast approaching, the golden sky darkening above him and taking the warmth away with it. It would definitely be a cool night.

Upon approaching the unit, Changbin found the door to be propped open with a wooden peg. From inside the large steel rectangle, he heard the light clangs and shuffling of someone inside. "Hey, Minho," he greeted, sliding the door open and gently setting it back on the peg before walking towards the many dark wooden shelves lining the first level.

A face popped up through the shelves and smiled. "I was wondering when you'd show up," Minho mused. Changbin chuckled.

"Yeah, Ahn and I had to clean out all these." He raised the cylinders for Minho to see, who hummed. "They took a while."

"I feel you. I had to do my own dishwashing too." With his own box at his feet, Minho pulled out a large red pot, droplets of water still sticking to the black steel. "We made curry today."

"Did you save me some?" Minho laughed at Changbin's attempted pout.

"Yes, child, don't worry." He handed him a small container through the shelf, and Changbin cheered as he took it.

"And this is why I'm best friends with the cooking club president," Changbin declared. Minho frowned.

"Is that the only reason?"

"What other reason would there be?"

"I'm taking the curry back."

"No!" Changbin hugged it protectively to his chest.

"Hey, if he can't have it, I volunteer as tribute," a voice echoed from the second level. The two boys shielded their eyes as Chan shone his phone light on his face, standing tall at the top of the metal staircase with a proud smirk while he blasted the Marvel theme song.

Before promptly tripping over his own feet and sliding down the stairs.

"Owwwwwwwww!"

"Smooth, Bang," Changbin nodded.

"I think you need chill, not curry," Minho commented. Chan glared at him as he sat up.

"I have chill! I am the chillest! Chiller than ice, baby." He winked, and Changbin dramatically gagged.

"What are you even doing here anyway?" Minho asked as he returned to putting the cooking supplies away. Chan stumbled to his feet.

"Hanging out in the coolest spot for the coolest dudes."

He then proceeded to scream as something cold tapped his shoulder. But when everyone turned to look, it was just Kim Seungmin holding an ice pack out towards Chan, his note app open.

_**"You okay?"** _

"Yeah," Chan said, chuckling as his ears turned red. Minho shook his head and returned to putting his stuff away. Changbin resisted the urge to slam his face into the curry in second-hand embarrassment. "Thanks, Seungmin." Seungmin gave a small smile as Chan took the ice pack, quickly typing out a new message.

_**"Be more careful, okay?"** _

"Careful is my middle name," Chan said proudly.

"No, your middle name Dumbass," Changbin said.

"I thought it was Christopher," Minho said.

"No!" Chan yelled.

"Can you all stop yelling? You're distracting me."

Another voice came from the dark corner, and Chan had to shine his light at the figure for him to become visible. Jeongin, dressed in all black with thick eyeliner per usual, quickly raised a hand to shield his eyes even though his overgrown bangs did a great job of that already. "Stop that!"

"Okay, Mr. Vampire," Chan said, continuing to shine the light at Jeongin. "Will you turn to dust if I keep pointing this at you?"

"You're ruining everything!"

"You shouldn't be writing in the dark, Jeongin," Minho said, noticing the notebook and pencil (both of course black) in his lap. "It's bad for your eyes."

"Curse these eyes of mine," Jeongin spat. "The only thing they do is force me to be a witness to the cruelty of this damned world."

"Dude, you're like twelve. Chill," Changbin said.

"I'm sixteen!"

"Only a four year difference."

"Time is a meaningless construct made by us humans to try and find meaning in our hopeless lives. To make us feel worth something in this universe when we are, in fact, nothing."

"All aboard the Depression Express," Changbin announced sarcastically, rolling his eyes as he turned away.

"You need to learn some chill from me, Jeongin," Chan said, still waving the flashlight around him. "I'm the chillest guy you'll ever meet."

"Lava is cooler than you, Chan," Jeongin retorted. "Now seriously, turn that light off!"

"But isn't it too dark over there?"

"The darkness is my only friend. It keeps me from seeing the lies of the world." Seungmin began frantically typing, and everyone waited patiently until he turned his phone around.

_**"But can't light also illuminate the good things darkness is hiding? Darkness can make us see things like how little kids see monsters in it. Light helps assure us we're safe and shows the darkness is actually hurting us in the end."** _

"But why would the truth of safety matter if the rest of the world is still as shitty and dangerous as it was before you turned off the light? Safety is fleeting, only for a moment before reality comes crashing back onto us again. It's better to not let yourself get hurt and just stay in the darkness. At least the monsters can't hurt you as much as people can."

Before anyone could respond, the door slid open again, evening light filtering into the dim lighted unit. The collar length black hair immediately gave the student council president away. "What are you all doing here?" Hyunjin asked. "It's way past school hours already." He waved a hand at Minho and Changbin. "Not you two, but the rest of you."

"Don't you know this is where the cool people hang, bro?" Chan asked, crossing his arms.

"Then why are you here?" Shifting his gaze away from an offended Chan, he focused on the wannabe Gerard Way sitting in the corner still trying to block the dAnGeRoUs fLasHLiGhT. "And are you really just sitting in the dark?"

"The dark is my friend and comforts me, shields me from the cruel world," Jeongin said. "I write better in it." Hyunjin blinked.

"Okay, well, can't you do that at home?"

"What is a home? I just have a house that I sleep in. That doesn't mean it's a home. I have no home except the darkness."

_**"Never thought I'd agree with Emo Bob on something."** _

"Don't encourage him, Seungmin," Changbin groaned.

"And at least give me a cooler name than Bob," Jeongin whined.

"Like Chan?" Chan asked, sliding on a pair of sunglasses.

Or at least attempting to before he ended up poking himself in the eye.

"Not at all," Jeongin dismissed as Chan pressed the ice pack to his eye and jumped around chanting, "Ow!"

"What's going on here?" Felix sung, clutching the strap of his bag as he peered inside the storage unit over Hyunjin's shoulder. "And why is Chan jumping around like me at a Twice concert?"

"Cool people jump around like this," Chan reasoned as he continued hopping in a circle. Felix tilted his head in confusion.

"So why are you doing it?"

"Hey!"

"And what's with the ice pack?"

"Cool people use ice packs!"

_**"He fell down the stairs and poked himself in the eye within five minutes of each other."** _

"Seungmin! Don't expose me!"

"Expose what?" the ever loud and bright voice of Jisung rung out right beside Hyunjin's ear, making him wince.

"Just burst my whole eardrum, will you?" he grumbled. Jisung shrugged.

"Okay."

And then he began to scream right in Hyunjin's ear.

"Not actually!" Hyunjin yelled, shoving Jisung away. Jisung huffed.

"Then you shouldn't have said anything in the first place. So what's going on in here?" He pushed past Hyunjin as he gazed around the space with wide eyes and his ever present grin.

But he also managed to step on Hyunjin's feet in the process. Both of them.

Hyunjin had to physically hold himself back from clocking the boy upside the head.

"Changbin and I are putting materials away," Minho said. "I don't know what everyone else is doing."

"Being the coolest person on the planet obviously," Chan said, going to cross his arms only to drop the ice pack with a loud thunk. "Shit."

"I'm becoming one with the darkness," Jeongin explained. "It's the only way for me to truly be myself. No one besides the darkness understands me. It accepts me, and I need to be in it to stay sane."

_**"I'm just here,"**_ Seungmin wrote.

"So there's no secret party going on?" Jisung asked.

"No," Minho said.

"No secret drug exchange?"

"No," Changbin said.

"Orgy?"

_**"NO!"**_ Seungmin immediately typed, shoving the screen in Jisung's face.

"Okay okay," Jisung relented, stepping back. "No need to bring out the caps lock, I get it."

"What you guys need are some treats," Felix decided, whipping his bag around and zipping it open. "And just your luck, I got several bags of Flamin' Hot Cheetos left!" he declared as he pulled out a bag of, sure enough, Flamin' Hot Cheetos that crinkled in his grasp.

"Felix, you know you can't be selling stuff on school grounds," Hyunjin said.

"It's not like it's drugs."

"People can technically inhale the dust," Changbin said.

"But the chili powder and capsaicin wouldn't make it pleasant," Minho said. "You might as well crush a pepper and snort it."

"I'm not even going to pretend I understood what you just said," Jisung said.

"Besides the point," Hyunjin dismissed before gesturing to Minho and Changbin. "You two continue your business, but the rest of you really have no reason to be in here, and since it's past school hours, you should probably leave."

"Why do you have to be such a buzzkill?" Jisung whined even though he had been in the unit for less than two minutes. "You can't just kick us out like this!"

"I actually can," Hyunjin said with a smile. "That's one of the perks of being council president." His smile fell as he grabbed Jisung by the arm. "Now move before I _literally_ kick you out."

"No!" Jisung protested as Hyunjin began shoving him back out the door, squirming and kicking. "I don't want to!"

"There's nothing fun in here anyway!"

"Hello! I'm here!"

"You're not fun, Chan."

"Shut up, Changbin!"

"Stop pushing me, I'll make this place fun!"

"So is no one gonna buy my Hot Cheetos?"

"No thanks, Felix."

"Get out, Jisung!"

"You'll never be cool, Chrispy!"

"What'd you just call me?!"

"Why won't you buy my food, Minho?!"

"No need to yell, Felix."

"Everyone else is!"

"Besides the point!"

"I will never give in!"

"You guys are interrupting my flow here!"

_**"I just wanted a quiet place to exist, guys."** _

"Everyone stop yelling!" Hyunjin screamed. "And Jisung, stop fighting!"

"Fuck! You!" Jisung cried, managing to wiggle himself out of the taller's grip and whirl around victoriously.

What he failed to realize was in flailing his legs around like a wild rabid mongoose, he had kicked the wood peg that was previously holding the large sliding door open.

As all seven boys focused on Jisung, they all failed to notice the slab of wood that allowed entry and _exit_ fly off into the grass. "Ha ha!" Jisung exclaimed as Hyunjin seethed. "How you like that?"

The door slammed shut.


	2. hour one ; 7:00 PM

Silence.

"The fuck was that?" Jisung asked, completely motionless as he glanced around the stunned faces of the other seven boys. "Did it get darker in here or is it just me?"

_**"Look behind you."** _

"Oh!" Jisung said. "The door's closed!" He frowned. "Wait, who closed the door?"

Hyunjin groaned. "Move out of the way," he said, pushing past Jisung to get to the door. He attempted to pull it open, but only caused it to rattle as he tugged on the handle. "Um..."

"Let me try," Minho said, calmly pushing Hyunjin aside as he took the handle. But he too could only make the door rattle in place, echoing in the tall space.

"Do _not_ tell me we're locked in here," Felix said. Minho sucked on his teeth.

"I won't tell you then," he said tightly. The mood dropped sharply as the boys took in quiet gasps.

Chan tried to laugh. "S-Stop trying to scare us, guys," he said between obviously forced chuckles. "Pfft—Jisung—Jisung couldn't have locked us in here! That doesn't happen to cool people like me!"

"Misfortune doesn't care who you are," Jeongin said. "It doesn't care about anything except striking, and anyone can fall victim to it. There's no point in trying to be something grand. It can all be taken from you in an instant. Your world can be flipped in on itself in an instant for no real reason and you can't do anything about it."

"Do you ever stop?" Changbin sighed.

"Does misfortune ever stop? Does death ever stop? No. It will never stop, nor will it ever stop giving us reminders that it's coming."

"I give up," Changbin said, throwing his hands in the air as he turned away.

Meanwhile, Chan was still adamantly denying reality like Donald Trump after he lost the election. Shaking his head, he continued to force laughs as he blubbered, "We—We can't be locked in here! That's—That's crazy!" He continued laughing like an absolute psychopath, and Seungmin subtly shuffled away from him towards Minho's side, tugging on his sleeve.

_**"I think Chan is the one who's crazy."** _

Minho nodded in agreement.

"You guys just probably aren't opening the door right!" Chan reasoned. "Only cool people can open this door." Nodding to himself, he swaggered over and chuckled as he grabbed the door handle. "You guys are so lucky I'm—"

Chan screamed as he fell back, the door still very much locked. Everyone stared at the rattling door in silence until it stilled. Felix sighed through his nose.

"Yeah, we're definitely locked in here."

And the unit was immediately filled with Chan's high-pitched screams.

"OH MY GOD, WE'RE GONNA DIIIIIIEEE!!" he screamed, sobbing hysterically as he tugged at his hair. "NOOOOOO THIS CAN'T BE REAAALLL!! WHYYYYYYY?!" He curled up on the floor and began rocking back-and-forth as the rest of the boys watched.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the coolest guy on the planet," Changbin drawled.

"COOL GUYS DON'T GET LOCKED IN STORAGE UNITS!!" Chan wailed. "AND I'M TOO COOL TO DIE!!"

"Not cool enough apparently," Felix muttered.

"WAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!" Chan cried.

"Looks like the sweet release of death will finally be upon us," Jeongin sighed.

"WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"

"Oh my God, no one is going to die," Minho chided.

"Except Jisung," Hyunjin said, cracking his knuckles with a sinister smile. "Because I'm gonna kill him myself."

Jisung stumbled back, raising a finger. "Listen! I may have been the one to kick the wooden peg that was keeping this door open and unlocked for us, causing the door to close and automatically lock with us still inside, therefore sentencing all eight of us to a seemingly endless fate of boredom and potential death in this storage unit all because of my own personal reckless action—"

" _WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH_!!"

"But that does not mean I deserve to be killed!"

"Jisung, I'm against murder just as much as the next guy," Changbin started, "but you literally just gave an entire monologue on why you deserve to be murdered by Hyunjin."

" _Thank_ you, Changbin," Hyunjin said. "Anyway."

Hyunjin promptly launched himself on top of a screaming Jisung.

Chan rolled out of the way like a rolling pin as the rest of the boys jumped up to pull the two apart, yelling to be heard over each other until they succeeded in preventing Hyunjin from mauling Jisung like a wild Black Friday shopper.

"Enough!" Minho yelled, his stern echoing voice even silencing Chan's cries. "It hasn't even been five minutes, and we're already trying to kill each other."

"Humans are destructive creatures," Jeongin began.

"No!" Changbin snapped before he could continue. "We're done with your emo shit." Jeongin huffed.

"Foolish boy, turning a blind eye to the truth."

"I'm older than you!"

"Age has nothing to do with it," Felix said. "I mean, look at our oldest."

"Fruit salad~ Yummy yummy~" Chan sung as he rocked back and forth in the corner. "Fruit salad~ Yummy yummy...~ WIGGLES, COME SAVE ME!!"

"Great job, Jisung," Hyunjin clapped. "You single-handedly broke Chan."

"Not my fault he's an overly emotional mess!"

"Okay, look, everyone calm down," Minho said. "How about we actually _try_ getting out of here before we start freaking out?"

"Even if you do try, there's no guarantee you'll succeed," Jeongin said. "There's always a chance of failure, sometimes an even greater chance than that of succeeding. And what's even the point of trying anything anyway when we're just destined to lose it all in the end when we die. We amount to nothing in the universe, and neither do our accomplishments."

Changbin took a deep breath. "What did I say about your _emo shit_?!"

"For once, I actually agree with Emo Bob," Hyunjin said.

"Don't call me Bob!"

Hyunjin ignored Emo Bob, "The door can only be opened from the outside now, and everyone's gone home. No one's gonna come over here until, like, six in the morning at the earliest."

"Well we have these wonderful pieces of technology called _phones_ ," Minho explained, pulling his out and waving it around in Hyunjin's face. "They allow us to communicate with people who are miles away."

"I know what a phone is!"

_**"There's no service,"**_ Seungmin wrote. _**"Nothing's going through."**_

"Seriously?" Felix mumbled, getting out his phone to try his luck. But apparently Lady Luck said, "Fuck you," and took a vacation because Seungmin was right, there was no service.

So there was no way for them to open the door.

No one around to open the door.

And no way to call for help to open the door.

" _WE'RE ALL GONNA FUCKING DIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEE_!!"

"Pull yourself together, Chrispy! Damn!"


End file.
